


Weird Science

by dragonspell



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:40:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonspell/pseuds/dragonspell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen is a brilliant if under-appreciated scientist.  His lab is a little rundown but Jensen knows that he's close to a scientific breakthrough that's going to cement his place in history--if only he could spend a little less time drooling over his gorgeous (but straight) research partner and got a little more sleep.  When Jensen receives the news, though, that his department is about to be shut down, he knows that close isn't going to cut it.  He needs results and quick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weird Science

**Author's Note:**

> Artist: [Smallworld_inc](http://smallworld-inc.livejournal.com) (at Livejournal.com).

  


Degrees, Jensen had found, were like languages: once you picked up the first one, the second, third and fourth ones were a snap—and an addiction. Kind of like Pringles. Or...gummy worms.

The gummy worms were a recent thing.

He’d graduated high school as a child prodigy, rushing through his senior year at the very awkward age of fourteen and entering college. His parents had worried but Jensen had dismissed them as being overprotective. At fifteen, he’d been more mature than most adults and, really, who needed high school anyway? High school was a fish bowl full of teenage rejection, acne, and being stuffed into lockers. Jensen was glad that he’d missed it.

Every now and then–when he watched one of those bad 80s movies that were always playing on some channel or another– he sometimes wondered what it would have been like to attend Senior Prom but Jensen didn’t let it bother him. Judging from the movies, he would have just ended up standing along the wall, gawking at all the popular kids out on the floor as the supposedly geeky but really good-looking guy danced with the cheerleader he’d been quietly lusting after for years.

Jensen didn’t know what it was like to be that secretly good-looking guy just waiting to claim his prom queen. It might have to do with him preferring a prom _king_ instead of a queen–a big problem according to Hollywood–but it was probably more due to the fact that Jensen was not a popular guy waiting to shed his geeky exterior. He was just a geek.

Awkward, shy, and dealing with an inconvenient sexuality, Jensen had scraped through his teenage years by learning to keep his head down and avoid being cornered by groups of other teenagers. Of course, when he’d been fourteen, Jensen had sometimes fantasized about being cornered by Zach Dupree, the star quarterback, but that was a different story entirely.

Seventeen years and three doctorates later, Jensen was still scraping by, though, luckily, he’d stopped daydreaming about Zach Dupree (who was marrying his third wife next July according to Jensen’s mother). Jensen had once thought that his life would be different once he graduated college and found employment, that he’d find his place in the world. _Belong_. It had taken awhile before he’d realized that all he’d done was trade in his fishbowl for an aquarium–one with sharks instead of fish.

“Dr. Strickland,” Jensen mumbled as he slunk by his tightly-buttoned-up boss. Strickland never even turned his head, too busy talking to the visiting suits and what looked to be an army general. Jensen breathed a sigh of relief. He was five minutes late today and Strickland was known for not tolerating tardiness. In fact, Strickland was not known for tolerating much of anything.

It took twenty-six minutes and thirty-two seconds to get to Kripke Labs from Jensen’s apartment. Six minutes from the second floor apartment to the subway, making sure to bypass Big George if he was drunk in stairwell again; two minutes waiting nervously in the empty space for the next train; five uncomfortable minutes on the Blue line, keeping his eyes on the dingy floor while would-be gangsters passed him by; two minutes to change trains to the Green line, shuffling past the business men with their briefcases and gold watches; eight minutes watching the city flash by once the Green line rose out of the ground and headed for the industrial complexes; then three minutes to walk to the lab and be waved past by Christian, the security officer with the long hair.

Sometimes, Jensen stopped by the coffee shop on the corner, upping his time to thirty-two. Today, he’d made the trip in twenty-three, starting out in a dead run from his apartment. His alarm had gone off right on time but Jensen had taken a few extra minutes to contemplate imperative protocols, standard deviations, and the chemical makeup of gummy worms. He’d gotten a little...waylaid.

It hadn’t been until Zelda had slunk in to demand breakfast with a vicious jump onto Jensen’s vulnerable stomach and a glare that Jensen had realized the time. “Shit!” he’d muttered and dashed for the shower, Zelda giving him the evil eye the entire way.

The gummy worms were becoming his newest vice. It would probably help if he knew what they tasted like.

Jensen slipped into an empty elevator and selected the button marked “B.” Usually, he had company, but, then again, usually he was on time. Jensen stared at his distorted reflection in the shiny metal of the doors and wondered if he’d aged at all in seventeen years. It sometimes seemed as if he was still fourteen and mooning over Zach Dupree.

The doors dinged open. “Jensen!” Danneel said, swishing in as her white lab coat swirled around her legs. “Where have you been? Have you heard?”

Jensen quirked an eyebrow. “Heard what?” he asked but Danneel was ignoring him, bending down to coo at Zelda in her carrier.

“Aw, baby, what are you doing in there?” She pushed her fingers through the small grate. “Doesn’t Jensen know any better than to keep you locked up?”

“I was about to let her out...” Jensen muttered, rolling his eyes. It wasn’t as if he was planning on keeping Zelda stuck inside her cage–and it was for her own protection, anyway. Who knew what trouble a cat would get into on the subway? Danneel popped the cage open and let Zelda saunter out, her bushy tail wrapping around herself. “She knows how to open it anyway.” It was useless to expect Zelda to stay in her cage. The only time that she would was when she was feeling lazy–otherwise, the cat was too smart for her own good. The only places that were safe from her were the ones that were padlocked–and even those were suspect. Jensen secretly thought that Zelda had figured out how to pick locks. Far too often, he found her languishing in a cabinet that he’d sworn had been safely secured.

“There’s a good kitty,” Danneel cooed, cuddling the purring cat under her chin.

“Heard what?” Jensen repeated. Zelda was a subject that he would never win on. Ever since he’d found her as a kitten, half-drowned outside the lab, she’d become an unofficial mascot and most everyone had an opinion on how to properly treat her. The cat, to say the least, was spoiled rotten.

“Hmm? Oh, there was a memo. I thought you would have been here earlier.”

Jensen flushed. He was always on time. It was only lately that he’d been having problems. Ever since… “I...overslept.” Danneel raised an eyebrow skeptically and Jensen ducked his head.

“You should ask Chad for it. If you hurry, you might catch him before his break.” Jensen sighed. Yet another unfortunate side effect of running late: he might not catch the secretary before his mid-morning break. Chad took his breaks very seriously. "Strickland's on the warpath."

Jensen's heart skipped a beat. "Strickland?" The elevator doors chimed.

"Oh, it's my stop," Danneel chirped and pushed Zelda into Jensen's arms. "Take good care of her!"

"I--Danneel!" Jensen grabbed for her arm as she slipped out. "Danneel!"

She spun, red hair swirling around her shoulders. "Sorry, Jensen, I've got to go. Strickland's monitoring our productivity. Ask Chad!"

"But--"

"Or Jared!" She wiggled her fingers at Zelda. "Bye, honey. Don't let him forget your tunes."

Jensen stared after her as she disappeared behind a bank of computers and the doors slid shut again. Zelda yowled, lashing her tail. "Don't start," Jensen grumbled, hefting her onto his shoulder. "I need somebody on my side today." Today was supposed to be a good day. After months of being lost in a never ending labyrinth of theory and computer simulations, Jared and he were close to a breakthrough—something that would make them famous. Something that would allow them to break free from Strickland and his insistence on research always having to have a bottom line. Jensen sighed and stared at his reflection again. Life wasn't supposed to be this way. There were shackles around him—with one big one around his neck named Strickland. "It's going to get better, Zelda." The B lit up on the elevator.

"Jensen!" Large hands hauled Jensen out of the elevator, dragging him into the hall. Jensen stumbled on the tile, dropping Zelda as he tried to catch himself. "Where have you been? We have to get started!"

Jensen wrapped his fingers around the wrists that were holding him up and stared upward. Jared always had been a few inches taller than him. "What?" He flushed, feeling awkward and lost, his brain unable to decide if it wanted to focus on what Jared was saying or how his lips looked forming the words. It was just going to be a bad day all the way around.

"The micro laser transcendental particle wave!" Jared said, shaking Jensen. "We've got to—"

"You have three messages," a monotone voice cut in. Jensen swung his head to the left to see the floor's bored secretary, Chad, reading off his clipboard. "Your mother called. She wants you to call her back. Your dry cleaning is done and Dr. Strickland sent a memo marked urgent. He says that he—" Chad cut off in mid-sentence to glance at his watch.

"Says what?" Jensen asked. Jared was gaping at the both of them. "Strickland says what?"

"I'm on break," Chad replied and turned sharply on his heel to head down the hallway.

"Chad!" Jensen called after him. "Strickland says _what_?" Chad walked around a corner.

"Fucker," Jensen swore. He struggled with Jared's deathgrip, wanting to follow Chad. Couldn't the man have at least just _handed_ him the memo? "Damn it..."

"Strickland's shutting us down, Jen," Jared said quietly. His fingers reluctantly released Jensen's shoulders, letting Jensen settle back into a more natural posture.

"He's _what_?" Jensen thought that he must have misheard Jared.

"Shutting us down." Jared couldn't quite seem to meet Jensen's eyes, glancing around the hallway. "Unless we give him something that he can use. Which is why we've got to—"

“He can't _do_ that! We have a contract!”

Jared shook his head and held the lab door open as Zelda trotted inside. “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need to fund us, Jen.” Jensen’s eyes skittered across his workspace, feeling his heart sink.

“He doesn’t already…” Jensen muttered. Their computers were over fifteen years old, running on outdated software and nearly every piece of furniture was something that had been hauled out of storage, usually by him or Jared—hand-me-downs of hand-me-downs. In fact, the newest computer they had in the lab wasn’t a computer at all—it was a shell of an iMac that Jared had brought in as a bed for Zelda. Not that Jensen usually minded the ramshackle state of his workspace. This was his first lab—his very own and he’d fought tooth and nail for it.

“Yeah,” Jared agreed softly. “And if we don’t turn a profit soon, he’s not going to even give us this much.” He pushed past Jensen to slump into his favorite chair, the one that creaked whenever he moved. “We’re under contract for two years, Jen, so he has to pay us but he doesn’t have to fund us. He could put us in someone else’s section or, you know, just let us sit here. Doing nothing.”

Sitting in the dark without even the power to run a centrifuge: Strickland would do it. With Jensen’s credentials, there was a better chance of him being snapped up by some lesser scientist to work on inferior projects like a second stringer on a baseball team. Jensen dropped into the chair beside Jared’s. It would be a fate worse than death. Jensen had put in his time. He’d leveled up, _damn it_.

“So it’s now or never,” Jared added, his chair creaking as he turned on his computer. Zelda batted at his hand and he obligingly pressed play on her personal iPod. The cat was an Apple freak. She refused to have anything to do with generic devices.

“But it’s not _ready_ ,” Jensen protested. Every simulation with the beam ended in unmitigated disaster as the controls failed when they shouldn’t. Sure, he and Jared were _close_ but that could mean that they were anywhere from a day to a year away.

Jared smiled wanly at Jensen. “So, we’ve got today to figure it out.” He leaned toward Jensen and used the reach of his arms to drag Jensen into a hug. “We’ll make it, Jen.” Jensen’s cheek pressed against Jared’s hard chest and Jensen’s heart skipped a beat. Damn Jared as his incessant need for tactile contact. Jensen sometimes wished that he could enforce a three feet of personal space rule between them—their own little bubbles—if only because of the stupidly infatuated way he reacted whenever Jared pulled him in for a quick hug or slapped him on the back or stood entirely too close. Why did he have to get the attractive straight guy to work with, anyway? That was hardly fair; Jared was easy on the eyes but he was awfully hard on the heart. And…other parts.

When Jared released him, Jensen scurried away, trying to pretend that he wasn’t retreating like a scared virgin when he so obviously was. He rolled himself the few feet to the Jet Engine—an ancient computer that took up most of a desk and roared like a plane about to take off but, sadly enough, was the most powerful piece of equipment they had. “Well, something’s definitely wrong with the stabilizing thruster…”

“As in ‘it won’t thrust’?” Jared asked innocently and Jensen shot him a glare. A red gummy worm hung from Jared’s mouth and he slurped it up. Jensen swung back around to stare at his keyboard. Those damn gummy worms. Jensen wished that Jared would go back to the little bears because at least then Jared didn’t feel the need to eat them like some kind of bizarre porn star, letting them linger while he slowly sucked them between his lips. “I think it’s the equation,” Jared added, seriously again. His fingers clacked on the keys of his computer. “The variables need to be adjusted.” Jensen had a variable that Jared could adjust. It was growing exponentially right now.

Jensen rolled to the other side of Jared, booting up the next computer, mentally cursing Jared’s sweet tooth. The man was forever bringing in treats to torture Jensen with. Though, perhaps Jensen should count his blessings. The Tootsie-Pops had only last two days—two very uncomfortable days. The monitor flicked for a second before going dark. “Fuck,” Jensen swore. Resigning himself, he slipped underneath the desk to fiddle with the power cord again.

“What’s wrong?” Jared asked, rolling toward him.

“I swear I’m going to duct tape this cord in place,” Jensen shot back as he slowly rotated the base of the cord.

“Oh, not getting any juice again?”

“Just tell me when it comes on.” Jared rolled in front of the computer, just to the side of where Jensen was bent over underneath the desk.

“No, not yet. Did you try leaning it to the left? It likes the left.”

“I _know_ it likes the left…” Jensen replied, doing just that. “How about now?”

“Uh, yep—no! No, it just went out again.”

“Fuck.” Jensen savagely bent the cord, taking out his frustration on it and Jared crowed.

“There it is! You’ve got it!”

“Thank fuck,” Jensen muttered, climbing out from underneath the desk. The narrow area didn’t allow him much room to maneuver and Jensen shoved his glasses higher on his nose. He should just rip open the cord and find the faulty wire before it did something more serious than refuse to work but he kept thinking that he’d get a new computer instead. ‘Hope springs eternal,’ after all.

Jared’s chair was in the way as Jensen finally emerged and Jensen pushed against Jared’s leg to roll him backward. Unfortunately, he seemed rather stuck in place. Jensen readjusted his glasses again and stared up at Jared—before realizing his situation. Jared’s long legs sprawled out on either side of Jensen’s shoulder and Jensen was at the perfect height to… To… Jensen flushed.

“Uh, okay, so it’s, uh, got power now, right?” Jared stuttered, rolling back to his own area, his face looking like Jensen’s felt. Not trusting himself to answer, Jensen climbed back into his chair and stared at his still flickering monitor. “So, I think I might have an idea how to fix the beam. I’ve just got to reprogram the simulation. When, you know, I actually fix it. Not that you won’t because, you know, you might get there before me because it’s not like you spend all day down on your knees—under your desk!” Jared’s keyboard clacked furiously as he babbled on and Jensen bowed his head. It was going to be a long day.

Zelda purred in her bed, blissfully unaware of how close she was to losing her happy home.

  
[  
](http://pics.livejournal.com/dragonspell/pic/0000x9y3)  


  


  


Two hours later, Jared pushed himself away from the computer, rolling across the floor to the filing cabinet where he hid bags of gummies. Jensen set down his coffee, expectantly. “Level Up?” Jensen asked. If Jared was allowing himself to break into a new bag, it was a good sign; he normally hoarded them.

“I,” Jared boasted with a wide smile, “am a genius.”

Jensen lifted his eyebrows. “You are?”

“Yes. You should be swooning appropriately.”

“Yeah, that’s never going to happen,” Jensen replied, rolling his eyes. He kicked away from his desk to slide in front of Jared’s computer. Long lines of code sprawled across the screen, changes carefully catalogued and marked. “So this isn’t going to nuke our server or anything, right?” He lowered his chin to skewer Jared with a look over the rims of his glasses. Jared might be a brilliant scientist, but Jensen was never going to forget the Blackout of 09 where shortly after Jared had pronounced himself a genius, his new and “improved” coding turned into a virus that fried nearly half the building.

Jared pouted. “That hurt, Jen. I thought we weren’t going to talk about that anymore.”

“Forgive, Jared. Don’t forget.” Jensen paged downward, still scanning. “This looks good.” Jared had changed a few simple variables which seemed to affect all outcomes. There was no way of knowing for sure without actually running the simulation, however.

“See? Genius.” Jared’s grin widened as he tilted back in his chair, flicking his hair out of his eyes.

Cocky preening suited Jared. The way his dimples flashed when he was happy sent Jensen’s blood pressure soaring. Jensen spun away as heat flashed through him, heading back to his own space and away from Jared and his…candy. “Let’s run it.” Silence settled over the lab, broken only by the low humming of electronics, and the heat that had been pooling inside of Jensen rapidly cooled. He turned slowly back to face Jared. “What’s wrong?”  
Jared’s dimples had disappeared and he wouldn’t quite meet Jensen’s eyes. “I, uh, had to change a variable.”

“I know that, Jared.” Jensen had just looked at the code. With all of Jared’s flags there was no way that he would have missed the changed variables.

“Well…one of them is now a little…high.” Jensen waited for Jared to finally spit it out. “Like…Misha high.”

“Fuck.”

  


Misha Collins was the star of Kripke Labs. If Misha had been a less likable guy, Jensen might have hated him. Misha was the kind of guy that got away with _murder_ —in a metaphorical sense, though Jensen wasn’t certain that if Misha would get away with murder in a literal sense. It was entirely possible that the higher-ups would hide the body for him.

Strickland hated Misha but it was out of his control. Misha was one of the most eccentric scientists at Kripke Labs, constantly inventing one crazy thing after another—such as the gigantic, kangaroo bunnies that maintenance kept as pets or the machine that took up most of floor 6 (its function was a mystery though Misha assured anyone that asked that it was highly important and “Please don’t disturb. It’s deep in thought”). However, for every one of Misha Collins’s useless inventions, he seemed to come up with a matching, wildly successful idea. Half of the gadgets that modern people considered indispensable to their everyday lives owed at least part of their existence to Misha. He was the sole reason why Kripke Labs was still in business and, thus, he was untouchable.

He also had one of the nicest labs in the entire building. Jensen felt green whenever he thought about it. Luckily, though, he wasn’t Bruce Banner. It kept the lab intact.

Jensen nervously straightened his badge as he passed a security guard. While he was an employee and had clearance to be on this floor, some of the officers were not known for their gentle natures. Not all of them were like Christian. Zelda, sitting comfortably on his shoulder like the free-rider she was, purred against his ear.

Sandy McCoy, Misha’s lovely assistant and Jensen’s former arch nemesis passed them by, oblivious with her nose nearly pressing against her clipboard. Jensen instinctively glanced at Jared, gauging the reaction, and felt his heart squeeze painfully when Jared stopped dead in the middle of the hallway. Jensen busied himself with staring at the hard blue tile of the floor. He hated this.

All last year, Sandy was the only thing that Jared could talk about it. She’d been the start, middle and end of every conversation. Before she had been hired, Jensen been entertaining “thoughts”—and not just the kind that made him late for work, either. As soon as her white sensible shoes had stepped in front of Jared, however, Jensen had been forced to face the cold hard facts.

He hated the reminders that Jared was straight.

Sandy and Jared had dated on and off for a year, finally breaking it off entirely during a particularly sad and depressing March. Jensen had spent that month feeling as if he were perpetually attending a funeral.

“Sandy,” Jared said with a nod.

“Oh, hi, Jared!” she chirped, marking off a checkbox. She beamed at Jared and then nodded at Jensen as an afterthought. “Jensen. Zelda.”

Jensen couldn’t take it. “Where’s Misha?”

Sandy jumped and stared at him. “What?”

“Misha?” Jensen asked again, raising an eyebrow but Sandy was leaning towards Jared, whispering something about…talking? They didn’t have time for this. Jared could flirt with his ex-girlfriend some other time—some other time when Jensen wasn’t watching and painfully aware of his own chances with Jared.

“Sandy, have you seen my notes on the cultural influences of planticular substratum—” Jensen found himself flattened against the wall as he was nearly mowed down by an extended plastic hand followed quickly by Misha Collins. Zelda yowled and abandoned her comfortable perch, knowing a sinking ship when she was on one. Misha pushed his glasses up and removed the blue stylus from his mouth. “Oh, hey, what’s up, I didn’t see you there, didn’t mean to run you over, say can you hold this for me?” Nodding in bemusement, Jensen gingerly took Misha’s…device. He’d learned over the years that sometimes it was just better not to ask.

The device looked as if at one point it had been some kind of e-reader but had had a series of horrendous operations since its inception. A multitude of modifications had been added to it. Jensen could see equations on its faintly glowing screen but had no time to read them as the large plastic hand that had been grafted onto the side waved itself in front of him. “Whoa!”

“Don’t drop it!” Misha shouted. The hand slammed into Jensen’s face, knocking his glasses to the ground. Jensen stumbled backward, falling against the warm wall behind him. “Bad hand! Bad!” Plastic crunched as Misha snapped off the added appendage and tossed it to the side. “Sorry,” he apologized, finally making eye contact for the first time since he’d arrived. “I’m still working on that. It’s supposed to keep intruders from reading my notes but it gets…overzealous. It has a hard time differentiating between thieves and colleagues. And, well, me.” Misha rubbed at a red mark on the side of his face. Frowning, Misha took the device back and popped the stylus back in his mouth as he tapped at the screen. “I know they’re in here somewhere.”

“You alright?” Jared asked and Jensen flushed when he realized that what he’d thought was a wall was really Jared.

“Yeah, fine, where are my glasses?” he mumbled, dropping to the floor to feel along the tile. Zelda swatted at him—payback for letting her jump ship.

“I haven’t seen your notes anywhere, Doctor,” Sandy said above him. “They should be right where you left them. Excuse me, I have to go check on the kangaroo rabbits. Security says that one has been escaping at night.”

“Yes, yes,” Misha muttered distractedly. “Kangaroos…Marvelous creatures, really. Underappreciated. Don’t you think so?”

Jensen sighed as he found his glasses. Great. It looked like they were cracked. “Yeah, sure,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. Zelda jumped back onto his shoulder but stayed at the ready in case she had to jump again. “Listen, Misha—”

Was that a tiara on Misha’s head? Jensen stared. Sometime between him getting smacked around by Misha’s borrowed hand and the conversation about kangaroos, Misha had acquired a new hairpiece. And it seemed to be…connected? Wires ran down the side of his head to connect to the reader but Jensen was more bemused by the small star on top of Misha’s head. He looked like he was just waiting to activate it and go crashing through some troopers… A smile started to pull at Jensen’s face.

“It’s their pockets I admire,” Misha continued, tapping away at his pad. “So handy.” He froze, his eyes sightless. Then he brought the pad up closer to his mouth. “Mental note: look into genetic modification for pockets. A man can never have enough pockets.”

“We were wondering if we could borrow your lab,” Jared blurted out, his hands in his pockets. Jensen whipped his head around. You didn’t just come out and _ask_ like that, right? You were supposed to work up to it.

“Jay…”

Misha blinked at them. “Well of course you can. Mi laboratorio es su laboratorio, mis amigos. At least somebody will get some use out of it tonight.”

“…Where are you going?” Jensen asked. Misha _never_ left his lab. If Strickland would allow him to, Misha would just figure out a way to have the cafeteria ship his food directly to the lab and then no one would ever see Misha again.

“I’ve got this thing,” Misha said, tapping away again.

“Oh.” Jensen crossed his arms. “So you can’t catsit tonight?” He’d honestly given it a little bit of thought. If the variables were as high as Jared said they were, he didn’t need Zelda with him. Even if everything went right, the energy in the room would be enough to give him static shocks for the rest of the week whenever he went to pet her. Zelda growled at that and Jensen reached up a hand to pet her side.

She never had liked Misha that much. Mostly, Jensen thought, because Misha didn’t see the big deal about Apple products. Though there was that one time where Misha had robotized her toy mouse…

“Hmm? No. Not tonight. I have to give a lecture about why Ewoks will never be able understand string theory. Very important stuff.”

“…I see.” Jensen peered at Misha, trying to figure out if he was serious or not. Knowing Misha, he probably was.

Jared clapped a hand on Jensen’s shoulder and Jensen turned to see his grin. “Nah. Ewoks are more about quantum loops.”

“Exactly! See that’s what I said! Plus, that doesn’t even take into account the effect of the unmitigated—” A buzzer went off and the star on top of Misha’s head switched on, electrifying and projecting itself. Misha flinched. “Ah, excuse me. I have to see a man about a conduit.” He walked off, rubbing his tiara and muttering to himself about star power seeming to be a good idea in theory but having unforeseen consequences when implemented.

“Well, alrighty then…” Jensen said, staring at Misha’s back.

Jared’s fingers rubbed a highly distracting circle on his shoulder before dropping away. “Hey, we got the lab. We can ask Dani if she’d catsit for us.” He pushed Jensen forward, shoving him out of his contemplation of other parts of himself that could use some circular motion from Jared.

…If this experiment worked and he and Jared got filthy rich from doing it, Jensen was going to have to look into getting laid. This was ridiculous.

He was still wondering what gummy worms tasted like.

  
[  
](http://pics.livejournal.com/dragonspell/pic/0000q1zd)

Danneel was occupied (apparently, she was attending Misha’s lecture—in full costume no less) but the intern on floor three agreed to do it with just a little flexing of Jared’s muscles. Jensen had grit his teeth and looked away. Genevieve was entirely too interested in the ringless state of Jared’s finger. As far as he was concerned, she was just a few centuries of hermitude away from being Gollum.

Jensen entered the security code for Misha’s lab, debating on buying Jared a replica of the One Ring to wear. He could always claim that it was just for a cosplay.

“You okay, Jen?” Jared asked.

Jensen frowned. “Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, you just seem a little…” The lab door swooshed open, locks unsnapping and a sealant door rolling away. “…distracted…” Jared finished, breathlessly.

It was like stepping into the Cave of Wonders—if Aladdin had been a scientist and the Cave had been filled with long banks of white computers instead of gold. Jensen sighed. Just one of those computers probably cost more than his entire lab. All he could do was dream of maybe getting a hand-me-down of one of them in about five to ten years.

Gyroscopes twirled all across the lab but Jensen already knew that they didn’t really serve a purpose. Misha was just an enthusiast. Secretly, however, Jensen thought that Misha might be deflecting when he claimed that. Jensen wouldn’t put it past Misha to have one gyroscope in the bunch with a vital purpose while the rest were just sheer decoration. Misha was like that.

The core reactor—Misha’s pride and joy next to the gyroscope collection (costing more than Jensen and Jared’s salary combined)—pulsed dimly against the wall it dominated and Jensen smiled, his heart racing as he looked at it. It was going to be his and Jared’s ticket out of the basement doldrums.

Even Strickland wouldn’t be able to deride this. Sure, Jensen had designed the micro laser transendental particle wave beam originally as a way to warm-up cold coffee without using the microwave, but in the development stage, it had morphed into something else entirely. Jensen was living out a comic book dream and building a freaking _death ray_ in his lab. Oh, not that he would use it and, really, he was still hoping that it would heat up that cup of coffee, but it still had weaponized applications and that, more than anything, was what would sell Strickland.

Jensen glanced over his shoulder at his partner, admiring Jared’s back as he bent over to plug in the USB ports to the hard drives. This would work. It had to.

“Okay, change the x…carry over the…got it. And…” Jared beat on the table in a drum roll, then twirled to face Jensen with a smile. “…we’re up and running.”

Jensen smiled back. “Well, let’s get to work.”

The gyroscopes whirled uselessly over and over—but there seemed to be a pattern among them all. After a few hours, Jensen thought that he finally had it—some method to the madness as the case might be. They seemed to be going in time to something. And for some reason, Jensen had “It’s a Small World” stuck in his head. It had to be related.

Jared was tilting back in his chair, spinning slowly as he stared up at the ceiling. This was the most boring part of science—the waiting. Except, Jensen thought, at least the thrill of anticipation was humming away just below the surface. It was a double edged sword, giving him the strength to wait for the computer simulation to finish yet making it seem like it was lasting for eons. Lines of code continuously scrolled across Misha’s multitude of screens, propelled by the tetras of RAM Misha had at his disposal.

“Hey, Jen?”

“Hmm?” Jensen swung around to glance at Jared.

Jared ducked his head, looking unusually shy. “If this, uh…” He trailed off and Jensen raised his eyebrows expectantly, waiting for Jared to finish. “If this works…do you…uh…” Jared frowned and spun away. “Do you think it’s going to be enough to convince Strickland?”

Jensen stared at Jared’s back. For some reason, he thought that Jared had been about to say something else. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Just curious,” Jared mumbled, leaning over his keyboard, clicking at the keys. Jensen blinked at him. There was no reason to touch the keyboard at the moment.

“Jared—”

“Working late, doctors?” Jensen whirled around to face the door as Strickland strolled in, a small smirk on his face. “I do hope you’re actually making progress.”

“Doctor Strickland,” Jared greeted, hesitating only a second before putting on a smile. It was one of the many things that Jensen liked about Jared: his ability to smile convincingly no matter what the states. At the moment, the best that Jensen could manage was baring his teeth—and he couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t use those to sink into Strickland’s neck.

Strickland put one hand on his hip. “You’re both aware of your situation and I would hate to think that you were wasting resources on a last ditch effort. You are aware of your situation are you not?”

“Uh…”

“Yes we are,” Jensen cut in. “We’re actually very busy, too.” The computer simulation chirped cooperatively and Jensen turned to face it to scroll through the newest readout. The equations were holding true–some power fluctuations but nothing that couldn’t be accounted for. As Jensen skimmed the data, he couldn’t help but feel his heart lifting a little. This… This was promising.

“Oh, and what’s this?” Strickland leaned over Jensen’s shoulder. His eyes ran over the code and a small smirk grew on Jensen’s face the longer Strickland took. He was willing to bet the Jet Engine that Strickland didn’t have a clue what he was looking at. If he did, he’d be a lot more excited.

“It’s showing success, Doctor,” Jared said, sounding terribly young and earnest.

Strickland straightened, giving up on his attempt to decipher the data. “Yes. Yes, it is. Keep up the good work.”

“Oh, yes, sir. Very exciting,” Jensen said, his smirk growing. Strickland couldn’t say anything about the data because he’d have to admit he didn’t know what it meant.

Strickland smiled blandly back. “Just make sure it doesn’t take too long, Doctor Ackles. Time is money, you know. As lead researcher, you should know that. I covered it at the last interdepartmental meeting: experiments with results are the only thing that matter here. And, I’d hate for it to turn out like your last big attempt.”

Jensen clenched his teeth to stop from snarling and forced himself to nod while picturing himself attacking Strickland like an enraged Klingon.

“Sir,” Jared cut in, saving them both, “as you can see, this is very much viable. It is definitely within our reach. The benefits will be enormous.”

“Well, then. I will leave you two to your work and…” Strickland twirled his hand. “…all that.” He turned and exited the room.

As soon as the door closed, Jensen turned to face Jared’s worried eyes. “Everything’s fine in the simulation, right?” Jared asked and Jensen nodded. Even the intermediant wavelength was operating efficiently which one of the parts of the experiment that had always failed before. “Then we’ve got no choice, Jen.”

Jensen nodded again. Under normal circumstances, he’d insist on running the simulation multiple times, looking to account for any possible deviations but, unfortunately, that would take time that he and Jared just did not have. It was now or never and this was one dream that Jensen wasn’t willing to give up.

Jared looked at him expectantly. “Do we go through with it?”

Taking a deep breath, Jensen spun around to the monitor. The final choice was technically his, but that wasn’t true, was it? He had no choice at all. “We go through with it,” he said grimly. “Start up the reactor.”

Multiple windows opened on Jared’s monitors as Jared put in the new parameters and Jensen stood to head over to the reactor. He could activate the reactor from his computer but he just needed to feel it himself. The reactor pulsed brightly when he flipped the switch to remove the inhibiters and safeguards.

In a moment, Jared was standing beside him, his hand on Jensen’s shoulder and Jensen leaned into the touch.

The charge in the reactor steadily built, heading towards maximum entropy, and the computers beeped as each requirement was met, one by one. Though he wasn’t superstitious, Jensen found himself crossing his fingers, followed soon by his toes attempting the same thing. He wasn’t particularly religious, either, but he was praying to whatever supernatural creature might listening from a Christian God to Vishnu to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Jensen had suffered many failures in his scientific life and he was okay with that but he just needed this one success. Just one.

Jensen’s heart raced faster and faster as the reactor continued to grow brighter and the power nodes sparked promisingly, preparing to materialize the beam. All the monitors were a continuous green light, no errors, no anomalies.

“We’ve got something,” Jared said quietly, pointing at the display that was reading the charge. “It’s measuring close to optimal levels…” He trailed off, excitement threading through his hushed tone.

For the first time, Jensen dared to hope. He stared at the monitor, watching the power readings go up and up and up and eventually off the charts, building up an astronomically high charge with little energy expended, and turned his head to look at the output. A purple line of pure light was suspended between the two nodes, wavering a little but growing stronger and pride welled up in Jensen’s heart. This was the closest that he and Jared had ever been. It was working! He was doing it!

Jensen’s breath came quick and fast and Jared gave his shoulder another squeeze before leaning to the side to check another monitor. Correction, he and _Jared_ had done it.

“Everything looks—” Jared cut himself off, frowning at the screen. “…what the hell?”

“What?” Jensen asked. “What is it?”

“It’s…” Jared clicked at a few keys. “Probably nothing but… Damn.” He bent over the keyboard, entering in a long line of keystrokes.

“Jared, what’s going…” Jensen leaned around Jared to look at the monitor, catching sight of all the multiple warnings starting to crop up. “No…” The neutron interface was flashing a glaring red and the electro-seismic readings were edging past the green zone. “No, no, no!” Jensen dropped into a chair and pulled up the nearest keyboard, entering in code himself. The simulation had showed nothing like this! The purple wavelength faltered and began to writhe, minute vibrations breaking up its consistency.

This was why he should have run more before even attempting the experiment. Jensen cursed himself. He should have known.

“Jensen, the reactor’s running too hot—it’s exceeding containment!”

“What?” That shouldn’t be possible! They shouldn’t be using enough energy to overload the... “Activate the dampener,” Jensen said. He typed in more commands, trying to salvage the experiment. If he could just get the synthesis process back in line…  
“I’m _trying_. It won’t respond!”

Fuck! Jensen abandoned all hope of having the experiment be successful. He slammed his fist against the desk and opened up another window. “Then use the killswitch.”

“But—”

“Do it!” If they didn’t kill the experiment, then, without containment, they weren’t just risking the experiment, they were risking the entire lab—and everyone in it. “Countdown on my mark. Five. Four—”

“Wait! Just…one…shit! All right, I’m ready.”

“Three, two, one!” Jensen pressed down the CTRL-ALT-DELETE and entered his code. It felt almost painful to do.

“Jen?”

Jensen stared at the data readout. That was impossible… The killswitch was refusing to engage! “One!” Jensen shouted, trying again. “One!”

“It’s not working!”

Jensen spun around to see the reactor over Jared’s shoulder glowing a sickly yellow that was quickly growing brighter and brighter by the second. Red lights flashed critical on the sensors, warning of an imminent meltdown, and fear clogged Jensen’s throat. Radiation was already starting to leak out of the containment field and bathe the room, coating them in the unearthly glow. “Jared!”

“I’m going to try something,” Jared shouted, typing a furious line of code.

 _There’s no time,_ Jensen thought. No time. In a matter of seconds, the reactor was going to go critical and then it was going to be all over–for them, for the lab, for half the city... Jared, standing right next to the reactor was going to be the first to go!

For once in his life, Jensen didn’t bother to think–he only reacted. His hand lashed out and latched onto the back of Jared’s chair, spinning him away from the bank of computers and across the lab. “Jensen!” Jensen dove for the reactor’s wires, tearing and pulling at the various codes, ripping them from their sockets. There was no way to control the reactor now–the only hope was to destroy the thing.

Sirens blared in Jensen’s ears, rattling his very bones.

The last thing he felt before the blackness took over was a sense of flying, moving away from the hot blast of the reactor and the sparking wires. Jensen assumed that he was dying, hit by a resulting explosion and now seeing if there was anything to all his mother’s praying. “Jensen!”

  


Consciousness returned slowly, with all the petty vengeance of a hang over the day after an all night party—the kind where you ended up nearly naked dancing on some table or waking up in the lap of some jock whose greatest goal in life is to get drunk, get laid, and maybe run after a ball now and then—in between hazing the very nerds he depends on for doing his term papers and loudly proclaiming that he’s not gay to all of his jock friends. Jensen griped his head and winced—and not just from a few highly embarrassing memories.

He felt like he’d been sucked into an imploding supernova and spit out of the resulting black star—squeezed and pressed down his base molecular structure and all the compounds refusing to join back together. What the hell _happened_?

“Jensen?”

Jensen groaned, rolling his head towards the timid voice, wondering why it sounded so worried.

“Jensen, are you alright?”

Reality came flooding into Jensen like a seismically induced tidal wave and he shot upward. Oh, God, the lab… _Jared._ Jensen swung his head around, looking for his partner and immediately regretted it as the pain in his head multiplied.

“Jensen, take it easy.” Jensen focused on the voice and forced the blurry world to sharpen into a recognizable rendering of the real world. Danneel’s concerned face finally came into focus. “Can you understand me? Help is on the way, Jen, but you have to lie still until they get here, okay?” Jensen peered at him, not quite understanding but knowing that she wanted his approval. He nodded slowly. Over her shoulder, he could make out the smoking remains of Misha’s multi-millionaire dollar reactor and his heart sank. He was so fired. If he lived through this—without any side effects like developing cancer or growing a tail—he was so fucking fired.

“J—” He wet his lips and tried again. “Jare-ed?” Danneel stared at him like she was trying to solve a difficult equation—probably trying to diagnose him through sight alone—and turned her head to the left.

“He’s over there,” she said quietly. “Talking with Strickland. Jensen, you’re the one who took most of the blast.”

Jensen turned to where she was looking and saw Jared, towering over Strickland, and looking so painfully earnest that Jensen’s heart clenched. This was all his fucking fault. He should have told Jared that they weren’t going to give into the pressure. Sure, the pressure had come from Strickland, but it had been Jensen who had given in to it. Sandy stood by Jared’s elbow, looking perfect, and Jensen glanced away.

“You saved him, Jensen.”

Jensen tried to shake his head but it pain stabbed through his skull. He didn’t _save_ Jared. He was the one who put Jared in danger. Jensen didn’t even save _himself_ —something had lifted him away from the blast zone. He remembered that much, at least.

“How’s he doing?” another voice asked and Jensen peeked up out of the corner of his eye to see Sandy bending down next to him. Resentment sparked through him; he knew it was unfair—Sandy was genuinely worried about him and Jared—but he couldn’t help himself. Fingers brushed against his shoulder but they hastily jerked away. “Ouch!”

Jensen blinked at her for a moment as she shook her hand, wondering if she’d somehow been stabbed with his envy but realized that that sounded silly. “Sorry,” he rasped. “Reactor.” He must have gotten a charge from the reactor during the blast and was now a walking static electricity receptacle.

“Right,” Sandy said, staring off at the charred remains of the equipment. “It’s a good thing that you stopped it when you did, though. It could have taken out the whole lab.” She smiled. “You’re a hero!” Her hand hovered over his shoulder again, wanting to touch but not wanting to risk it.

For a moment, Jensen caught Jared’s eyes but he looked away hurriedly, lowering his head. He wasn’t a hero.

He was a spineless, talentless hack.

  


It’s a rare disappointment that a bottle of whiskey won’t cure. Or, you know, three. Jensen blinked his eyes open as he slowly slipped into consciousness. He remembered quite clearly making his way through the first fifth of Jack. Beyond that, however… There was a slight ache above his left eye but the rest of him—and his stomach—was mercifully quiet. Not bad for the aftermath of one of the worst setbacks of his career.

Jensen smiled bitterly. He was probably going to get fired today. Strickland needed a reason to do so because of the employment contract but Jensen figured that nearly melting down the entire lab complex would be good enough. Not to mention that months of his and Jared’s research had been washed right down the proverbial drain. Melted in the reactor, to put it more aptly.

And he’d almost killed Jared doing it. Jensen threw an arm over his eyes. Jesus. He’d nearly killed Jared. True, Jared had been there right along beside him and it had been Jared’s corrections that had thrown the reactor in meltdown mode but Jensen was head researcher. He was supposed to be on top of things. Instead, he’d almost let the man that he’d been not-so-secretly crushing on for months now die—too distracted by Jared’s smile and charm to even look over the code like he should have.

It was all there in the math. Jensen knew it was. He’d have to find it; it’d drive him nuts if he didn’t. He’d probably turn into one of those crazy old professor types with the wild hair and the tweed jackets living in their messy third-rate lab muttering over their notes. Hell, he was most of the way there—just a tweed jacket and a few missed haircuts away.

Jensen sighed and sat up, scrubbing at his head. Laying in bed just thinking wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He glanced at the clock and pushed himself off the bed. If he got up now, he might even have time to stop at the coffee shop on his way in to the lab. It was 7:58.

Yawning, Jensen shuffled out to the kitchen. He knew better than to go to the bathroom first; Zelda was sitting beside her dish like usual and she deigned to let Jensen briefly pet her before he dumped in half a can. “Gonna be living on 9 Lives if I get fired, Zelda. No more Fancy Feast for you.” Zelda ignored him as Jensen eyed the label. “Gourmet Delights—you eat better than I do…”

He tossed the can in the trash and popped two pieces of toast into the toaster. If he was quick enough in the shower, he’d be out before they cooled. His cheap, plastic toaster always took awhile to get warmed up. It had to decide that it wanted to toast and not just smolder.

The water in shower sputtered to life and Jensen tested it with a hand as he fiddled with the dials. It was a bit temperamental and he always had to get it just so. His hand tingled and he frowned, turning the cold up just a little bit more. The tingling didn’t stop. He’d already stepped halfway into the shower before he realized the reason why.

Blue sparks were flying off his body, streaking across the shower and ricocheting off the ceramic tile. Jensen’s eyes went wide. “What the _fuck_?” he yelled, dancing back out of the tub. He tripped over the edge and landed in a sprawl on the floor, watching the _lightning_ die a quick death in the streaming water, the current carried down the drain. “Jesus _Christ_!”

More sparks were zipping up and down his wet body and Jensen shouted, scraping at them with both hands, trying to brush them away, to get the water off of him. What kind of crazy, whacked-out, science fiction shit was this?! Water caused electricity? He froze in horror when he realized that the current was coming from the liquid.

It was coming from him.

Jensen’s hands glowed blue, tiny bolts shooting off across the bathroom, bouncing off the tile and the counter and the walls. A tiny portion of the mirror cracked, giving under the pressure and, like it was a starting gun, Jensen scrambled upward and dashed out of the room.

His entire body felt as if it were electrified, his hair standing on end, his skin tingling. The carpet clung to his feet, crackling with energy. Jensen gripped his hair, pulling at it before he even realized what he was doing. “Jesus!” He yanked his hands away, bringing them down to stare. Blue bolts danced along his fingertips. He was…he was…

Going to fry alive!

Jensen stumbled into the living room. He knew how to put out electric fires but how the HELL was he supposed to remove the source of the electricity when it was _himself_?

Zelda hissed and arched on the counter, swiping a paw at him. He recoiled, wanting to get far away from her, afraid that the electricity might jump from him to her. On the far side of the kitchen, the toaster was a melted, blue sparking mess. “Oh my God…”

Electricity crackled around the edges of the room, weaving in and out of electrical outlets. Light bulbs popped, circuits blew, and the TV blipped on with a high pitched whine. In the corner, Jensen’s old CB radio, the one that had been dead for years, hissed back to life. Jensen dashed for the relative safety of the hallway.

The current followed him, closing in around him in the more confined space and Jensen sank to the floor, staring at the wildly dancing sparks. He flattened his hands to the floor–he needed a fucking _ground_ or something–Jesus, this was fucked-up! How was–he would never–how could he–

Jensen’s thoughts ran in circles around and around in his head and, almost like it was imitating them, the electric current began to do the same, circling above Jensen’s head.

Wait. _Almost_ like it was imitating them? Jensen swallowed hard. It really shouldn’t be possible, but, then again, _none_ of this really should be possible. He closed his eyes and forced his racing thoughts to quiet, still them in mid-circular logic. Something inside of him smoothed out, metaphorical rough edges being sanded away and something akin to calm despite the terrified thump of his heart settled over him. Jensen dared to open his eyes again.

The electricity was gone. Jensen swung his head from side to side, checking out every corner of the hall, looking for traces of blue sparks but all he saw was the stark white of the drywall. ...Where did it–

A bolt of blue lanced across his vision, sparking in mid-air before disappearing. “Holy shit!” Jensen swore as an answering shock jolted through him. What the Hell was–another spark arced.

Jensen shoved himself to his feet. Panic skittered through him, echoed by the blue current dancing along his fingertips and Jensen was torn between terror and scientific curiosity: on one hand, this was not humanly possible and Jensen should probably be dead. On the other, though...was he controlling it?

Another spark flashed through the air in front of Jensen, shooting upward when he glanced toward the ceiling to check for more. Excitement gripped his throat and more electricity crackled along the wall in response.

 _Fascinating_. Jensen held up his hand and watched– _made_ –sparks arc over his palm. He smiled as they formed a ball, hovering perfectly between his fingers, and juggled it back and forth.

“Jared’s going to _freak_ ,” Jensen whispered to himself. He walked back to his bedroom as he experimented, seeing what else he could do with the current. Now that he had calmed down, it seemed as if it were completely in his control. He tapped his hand against the metal doorknob to check the conductivity and even stuck his fingers back under running water–nothing but when he wanted it to happen. “I’m a fucking superhero...”

Jensen glanced over at the clock, wondering how much more time he had to explore before having to go into the office. The clock still read 7:58. He stared for a moment, wondering. Hadn’t it been 7:58 when he’d first gotten up?

“Shit!” Reality slammed into cold and hard: his new found superpowers must have stopped the clock earlier this morning. Strickland was going to _kill_ him. If Jensen hadn’t been fired before, he sure was now! He lunged to the left, ripping open a drawer and grabbing the first pair of pants that weren’t jeans, yanking them on as he stumbled to the closet and grabbed a shirt.

He was still buttoning it when he ran out the front door.

A few seconds later, he dashed back into the apartment and grabbed a still startled Zelda, tucking her under an arm and careening down the stairwell, jumping four whole steps to make it over Big George.

  
[  
](http://pics.livejournal.com/dragonspell/pic/0000rrst)

The lobby doors swooshed open in front of Jensen. Zelda was attached to his shirt by her claws and showing no signs of letting go anytime soon. Jensen ignored the slight pinpricks of pain and held her just far enough away from him that her claws curled around his shirt and not, say, his skin. He dashed for the elevators, hoping to slip past Strickland and any of Strickland’s multitude of corporate spies. The lobby clock told him that he was twenty-five minutes late.

“Oh, Doctor Ackles!” A tall, leggy blonde waved at Jensen and trotted towards him but Jensen darted into a waiting elevator and jammed the button to close the doors. “Congrat–”

Jensen panted, trying to catch his breath, leaning against the stainless steel of the elevator. “Did you know that squids are not overly appreciative of–” Jensen jumped and spun around, realizing that he was not alone. “Are you alright?” Misha asked, looking vaguely concerned. “If you’re going to pass out, I suppose we can make a stop at floor five for some oxygen. Actually, let’s do that anyway. You can always use some good oxygen. _And_ they have that wonderful herbal tea that I can’t seem to find anywhere.”

“Doctor Col–Misha!” Jensen tried to discretely check his heartrate. Sparks were zipping over his skin and he frowned, hiding his hands behind his back. Zelda growled as she finally dropped to the ground. “H-How, how...” Jensen couldn’t decide which ‘how’ he wanted to ask–the generic ‘how are you,’ the logical ‘how is the reactor,’ or the more immediate ‘how the Hell did you get in here without me noticing?’

“Hmm? Oh, that. It went as well as could be expected, I suppose. There were TonTon sympathizers in the crowd and you know there’s just no talking to them.” Misha shook his head sadly and Jensen stared at him. He had no idea what Misha was talking about. “Poor misguided–anyway! Onward and upward, right? And Danneel was a lovely assistant. By the way, Jensen, I do think that congratulations are in order.”

For nearly blowing up the lab? “What?”

“Your experiment last night.” Misha was now looking at Jensen like _Jensen_ was the crazy one. “It was a success, wasn’t it?”

“What are you _talking_ about? I ruined the reactor!”

Misha waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, that. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. And it’s never been right since that time that Doctor Cooper tried to build that time machine... I think it was just _waiting_ to explode.” Misha scratched his head, pushing back the small tiara that Jensen hadn’t noticed before. “Really, I think it works better now–it can double as a couch! Plus, the low-powered, constant charge that its been building will revolutionize the world–”

“The _what?_ ” Jensen gripped the stabilizing bar behind him, wondering just when he’d entered the Twilight Zone and if he was ever going to see home again.

“Well, you did mean to produce an alternative to the current alkaline battery, yes?” Misha tilted his head. “Didn’t you get the memo?”

“What memo? Alternative?”

“You should really read the memo,” Misha said. He leaned in close, invading Jensen’s personal bubble, and Jensen flattened himself against the wall. “I quit this morning.”

“What– _why_?”

Misha blinked. “Why, because you just invented the first self-sustaining battery and I perfected it. Plus, I really think it’s time to move into my top secret bunker over at 113 Meredith Avenue, don’t you?”

“Isn’t that...the old Gamble Labs?” They’d gone out of business shortly after Strickland had moved into the area.

Misha’s eyes widened. “You know about it? It’s supposed to be secret.”

“It’s not a secret if–self-sustaining battery?”

“Hmm. Well, I guess that solves one dilemma,” Misha muttered to himself. “Though I will have to work on that Chameleon Drive. Maybe I can make it look like a telephone booth. ...Though people might be tempted to try and _use_ it...” Still standing in Jensen’s space, Misha reached into his bag and pulled out his modified tablet. The attached hand poked at Jensen until Jensen shoved it away. “Note to self: included ‘out of order’ sign.” The hand gave a thumbs-up and Misha dropped the tablet back into the bag. “Well, since you already know where it is, I won’t have to brief you. Which is too bad, I mean, I have the conference room and everything–I even have my own general. He doesn’t do much–retired you know–but if I let him fish in the built-in pond and let him put his feet up on the table from time to time, he’s happy to assist.” Misha handed Jensen a small business card and Jensen stared at it, confused.

TARDIS Labs  
Location: Earth (currently)

“...What’s this?” Jensen asked. “Doctor Who?”

“Who?” Misha asked, tilting his head. “That’s your new job opportunity. Theoretical Applications and Radical Deviations Institute of Science Labs. I’m thinking about relocating on the moon. What do you think?”

“Isn’t that...a long commute?”

Misha snapped his fingers. “You’re right! Obviously, I should look into transporters first.” The elevator dinged and Misha wandered off, muttering to himself.

“Well that was weird,” Jensen said to Zelda, pressing the ‘B’ button again. He flipped the card over, looking at the logo on the back before pocketing it. Apparently, when Strickland fired him later on, at least Jensen had somewhere to go. Even if it might eventually be located on the moon.

A self-sustaining battery, though? _How_? And he’d done it? Jensen held up his hands, watching the sparks dance from one to the other. However it had happened, _he_ seemed to be the prototype. He released a small charge against the wall, watching it quickly dissipate and shook his head. The whole world was turning upside down this morning. That blast must have taken him all the way into Bizzaro World.

“Jensen!” Large hands wrapped around Jensen’s collar and dragged him out of the elevator. Jensen gripped the solid arms that they were attached to and looked up at Jared. “I need to show you something!” Jared hauled him down the hallway to the lounge and slammed the door while Jensen tried not to think about just how many fantasies that he’d had over the years that had started this exact way. Electricity crackled for a brief moment before Jensen thought it out of existence.

Maybe he _was_ in Bizzaro World, Jensen thought, and maybe this was going to led somewhere interesting…

“Okay, so don’t freak out,” Jared said, pushing Jensen into chair. And _that_ was supposed to be Jensen’s line. “Remember last night? When, well, we blew up the reactor? I…think it…did something.” Jared’s eyebrows drew together as he sank down in the chair next to Jensen’s. Jensen stared at him and a few sparks slipped from Jensen’s fingers to zip down the leg of the chair.

 _Jared must have gotten hit, too!_ Jensen thought. And he was about to confess that he had killed his TV or something during the freak out. Or maybe he had grown another head somewhere. Personally, Jensen thought, the head thing was kind of cool, but he’d rather have the electricity. “Please don’t freak out,” Jared repeated and Jensen opened his mouth to confess the whole morning.

That was before he saw the cup hovering in midair. His mouth closed with a snap and he covered it with a hand. Holy…

Jared alternated between staring at the glass in deep concentration and shooting Jensen concerned looks. “Please don’t freak. Please don’t freak. Please don’t freak.” The cup floated back down to the table and sat down like it hadn’t been just hovering in front of them. “I have no idea why or what happened. It just…started. I mean, it’s cool—really cool, but scary, you know?”

A smile spread behind Jensen’s hand. He and Jared were fucking _superheroes_ , it was confirmed. And Jared could _levitate things with his mind_. “That’s—”

“Please don’t freak out, Jen. You’re the only one I’ve told—”

“I’m not going to freak out,” Jensen said, dropping his hand. “I mean, that’s _awesome_ , Jared. That’s really, really fucking awesome.” Electrical current zipped up and down Jensen’s arm. Jared was going to _love_ it. “I have something to show you too—”

Before he could confess his own secret, Jared cut in. “There’s something else I have to show you. Last night, I did a lot of thinking—you know, in between levitating everything in the apartment and…” He leaned over and kissed Jensen—a small, quick, nervous peck that made Jensen’s body light up faster than any spark. In fact—“Wow,” Jared said drawing away and shaking himself, a hand to his mouth. “I’ve heard of sparks flying but I’m tingling.”

“Sorry,” Jensen said quickly, flushing. He hadn't meant to shock to Jared but he hadn't been able to control himself. “I—”

“I’ve got to try that again,” Jared muttered and kissed Jensen again. There was no way around it, Jensen thought. Either he _was_ in Bizarro World or he had never woken up this morning and was having the most messed-up but _awesome_ dream ever and it was going to _suck_ when he had to go back to the real world. Jared’s hands closed around Jensen’s shoulders and held him still while Jared’s tongue made an exploratory swipe. He tasted sweet and a little sour and Jensen thought it had to be the gummy worms. When Jared pulled away again, Jensen tried to follow him. “I’m sorry, Jensen. I just needed to know how that felt.” Jensen blinked his eyes open as he tried to transition between ‘ _kissing Jared_ ’ and ‘talking.’ “I know you’re not interested but I thought I lost you yesterday and—”

“Not interested?” Jensen repeated, confused. Jared really wasn’t making any sense. Jensen would much rather go back to kissing.

“Well, yeah. I’ve been all but throwing myself at you for over a year and you—”

“I thought you were straight?” Jared had dated Sandy who, last time Jensen had checked, was very much a girl.

“Bi,” Jared said and stole another kiss. “Okay, now you can punch me or something but, damn, Jen, you almost DIED yesterday and I nearly lost you and I didn’t know what I was going to do because here I was pining after you, putting you up on this unreachable pedestal in my head and when I saw you lying there, on the floor, I just thought—”

“God, shut up,” Jensen muttered, grabbing a hold of Jared's head with both hands and cutting him off with a kiss. If this was a dream, he didn't want it to end, and if this was Bizarro World, then he was never leaving. He plunged his tongue into Jared's mouth, wondering if he could figure out the taste of gummy worms without ever having eaten one--just from tasting Jared. Somehow, Jensen didn't think that gummy worms would ever be able to stand up against the taste of Jared.

Jared's large hands wrapped around Jensen's shirt again, but this time it was to haul him upward and send him sprawling over the table as Jared climbed on top of him. The cup that Jared had been levitating earlier crashed to floor and Jensen pushed himself to look at it. He suddenly remembered that, Bizarro World or not, they were making out in a laboratory lounge that had no locks on the doors and a floor secretary that barely respected personal boundaries as it was. Unable to reach Jensen's mouth, Jared kissed down Jensen's neck, nipping and sucking as he worked his way to Jensen's shoulder. Jensen moaned and pushed at Jared.

Grudgingly, Jared allowed a tiny amount of space between them. Breathing hard, he stared down at Jensen. "What? What is it? Are we moving too fast? Because I can slow down. I can." He looked like he rather slit his wrists with a styrofoam cup.

"What? No, we're just..."

"I don't want to go too fast."

Jensen shook his head. He didn't want to go too fast, either--he wanted to enjoy this. His eyes raked down Jared's body, trying to picture what was underneath the labcoat and plaid. "I don't either."

"Oh good," Jared said and dropped his head back down to bite at Jensen's neck again.

Jensen sucked in a harsh breath as shivers raced down his spine. He pushed at Jared again. "Jared..."

"What? Too fast?" Jared swallowed and dropped his head against Jensen's shoulder. "Sorry. This rate of speed is confusing me. Could we just...figure out where we're going and when we want to get there? 'Cause I need a time frame..."

"Solve for r?" Jensen asked, bemused. Jared's shoulders dropped and Jensen was distracted for half a second trying to map them. "Well..." Solving for r sounded like a great idea. "I think where we should be going is your place and when we want to get there is as soon as possible." He swallowed. Was that too forward? That sounded too forward. Jensen didn't have enough experience with things like this. It had never really bothered him before now...

"I'm okay with that," Jared said and Jensen found himself hovering above the table as Jared hauled him upward a little too enthusiastically. He clutched at Jared's shirt instinctively. It was unsettling, but there was no way around it: Jared's power was fucking _cool_.

"Uh...you're going to have to put me down, Jay."

"What? Oh, right. Sorry." Jared flushed a little and Jensen felt solid ground under his feet again. He swayed and steadied himself against Jared's rock solid chest. Dear God. He needed to find out what was underneath all that plaid that Jared insisted on wearing. "Didn't you say you had something to show me?" Jared asked and Jensen stared at him as if he'd grown another head.

"Oh, that," he said, remembering. "I can show you later."

  
[  
](http://pics.livejournal.com/dragonspell/pic/0000s7fr)

Jared's apartment was approximately eleven minutes from the lab: the number one reason why it currently trumped Jensen's. Jensen's back collided with Jared's door as Jared shoved him against it, their mouths firmly locked together. "Mmm!" Jensen muttered, clutching Jared's hair. They were both hovering about two inches off the ground and someone was going to notice if Jared didn't hurry and get them inside.

"Got it!" Jared panted and opened the door so they could stumble inside, Zelda meowing as she shot past them. The door slammed behind them as Jared pushed Jensen toward the back of the apartment and tugged at Jensen's clothes, still kissing him. Jensen's shoulder slammed into a corner but he didn't care--he was too concerned with trying to help Jared achieve his goal of being vertical and naked.

A few stumbles later and Jensen was bouncing on the bed, looking up at Jared who was yanking his undershirt over his head. "Yeah..." Jensen murmured, sitting up to reach for Jared's belt. The buckle gave way under Jensen's fingers and Jensen couldn't stop himself from diving inside for a quick grope. Jared froze, his head tilted back and his eyes closed. Jensen squeezed and he was laid out flat, crushed underneath Jared's solid weight as Jared toppled him over. Jared's hips were pumping instinctively, rubbing against Jensen's thigh and Jensen thought that, for the first time since he was fifteen, he was about to come in his pants.

"Jesus!" Jared shouted, jerking to the side. "What the Hell was that?" He shook himself.

Jensen's eyes darted around the room, looking for whatever it was that Jared was talking about. "What's what?"

Jared glanced down Jensen's body. "I just got... _zapped_."

"Oh. Sorry." Jensen winced. He'd completely forgotten.

"Do you build up static electricity or something?" Jared asked.

"Something like that..." Jensen muttered and held up his hand, letting a few sparks dance around his fingers. "You've got your freaky radioactive powers and I've got mine." He shrugged apologetically. "I was going to tell you." He'd just...forgotten. In between all the kissing and shoving onto tables that had been going on.

"You're a human dynamo..." Jared ground against Jensen as he kissed him again. "Shock me."

"What?"

"Shock me, Jensen." Jared placed Jensen's hand against the bare skin of his leg. "Not, like, a lot but..." Jensen released a small charge against Jared's skin and Jared writhed, grinding. "Yeah."

Jensen licked his lips. "You like that?"

"Yeah," Jared breathed and shuddered as Jensen let more current tingle through his nerves. His hands raked down Jensen's sides and gripped Jensen's hips, his thumbs digging in. "God, Jensen..." He bit into Jensen's shoulder and then licked in apology. His tongue slipped along Jensen's skin, across his chest to lave a nipple.

Jensen bucked upward, moaning. Jared's cock was rubbing against his inner thigh and it was driving him _mad_. "I need you to... Need you to..."

Panting, Jared kicked off his jeans. Jensen shivered as Jared's bare skin rubbed against him and wiggled to shove down his own pants. He spread his legs back around Jared, his knees pressing on Jared's sides. The headboard clattered against the wall as Jared surged forward, driving his hips against Jensen's. "Yeah..." Jensen felt himself float upward, suspended in mid-air as Jared breathed hard in his ear. The rest of the room was floating up around them--the pillows, the alarm clock, the nightstand. With them hovering in mid-air, nothing was stopping Jared's hands from wandering wherever they wanted. Fingers dug into the muscle of Jensen's back, scraping downward until they reached his ass, gripping and squeezing.

Jensen released another small jolt, sending sparks skittering over Jared's body and making him shudder. "Fuck..." Jared whispered, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. A firm hand gripped Jensen's dick, stroking it hard and fast and Jensen bit his lip to try and maintain his focus. He build up a constant charge and pressed it against Jared's thighs. Jared groaned and writhed as something hot and wet splashed over Jensen's stomach.

They hit the bed as Jared's concentration shattered, bouncing on the mattress, and Jared buried his face against Jensen's neck as he shuddered through his orgasm. His hand was still working Jensen's dick, tightening even more. Jensen gasped as he came, sucking in air, unable to get enough. His heart thumped in his chest, pounding so hard, he thought that it was about to explode just like the reactor. Jared was hot and heavy above him, pressing him into the mattress, grounding him.

Electricity crackled through the room, popping lightbulbs and sending the clock racing through time. "Whoa!" Jared said, trying to shield his eyes from the intense blue light.

Jensen winced. “Sorry…”

“Sorry?” Jared asked. “What are you apologizing for? That’s _awesome_.”

“Dude.” Jensen stared up at Jared. “I just killed your lamp.”

Jared shrugged. “So I’ll get a new one.” He grinned. “And you’ll learn not to fry everything in the apartment when you come.”

Jensen blinked. “I will?”

“ _Oh_ yeah. Because I plan on making you come as much as humanly possible. I’m sure you’ll have time to work on it.”

Jensen smiled and closed his eyes. “Well, in that case, I’m sure I’ll get it down.” He apparently was going to have a lot of time to practice and Jensen was nothing if not a very fast learner. He walked his fingers over Jared’s bare skin again, tickling him with a small amount of current and Jared hummed as he rolled over onto his side.

“Hey, do you think if we overload the reactor again, we’ll get even more powers?”

Jensen blinked. “There’s a better chance we’ll wind up _dead_ ,” he said. “And you’re _telekinetic_ \--what else could you want?”

Jared laughed. “Super strength? X-ray vision?”

“So Superman,” Jensen said, rolling his eyes.

“Kind of.” Jared’s hand slid over Jensen’s hip. “Except, you know, instead of using them for the betterment of mankind, I was really just thinking about using them to slam you up against a wall and see what you look like underneath your clothes.”

Jensen’s brow furled. “I’m already naked and you’re _telekinetic._ ” He had to admit, though, Jared was probably onto something with the whole wall thing. He eyed Jared’s wall appraisingly. The idea had potential.

“Oh, right,” Jared replied and grazed his hand over Jensen’s spent dick. Jensen’s body spasmed, an aftershock rolling through him, and he batted Jared away. “So…how long do we have until we can, you know, try the whole wall thing?” Jensen amped up the current and gave Jared a quick shock. “Ow!” Jared flopped back against the bed, rubbing his leg. “Okay, so later.”

A plastic bag rustled and Jensen looked over to see gummy worms hovering just above Jared’s stomach. “Really?” Jensen asked.

“What?” Jared asked, shoving one into his mouth. “You want one?” The bag swung over to Jensen and Jensen stared at the mass of red and white candy. He shrugged and popped one into his mouth.

It tasted not a little like Jared—just as Jensen as thought it would. A smile pulled at Jensen’s mouth. “What?” Jared leaned over him as he chewed. “ _What?_ ”

“Nothing,” Jensen said and yanked Jared down to kiss him. They started to float again but Jensen barely noticed, just wrapped himself around Jared and let himself go. His life was a little weird, but at the same time, it was just about perfect.

Somewhere in the other room, music switched on and Jared broke away to stare. “Is that my iPod?”

Jensen laughed. “Zelda’s just making herself at home,” he said and dragged Jared back to him. Weird but perfect.

  
[  
](http://pics.livejournal.com/dragonspell/pic/0000th8a)

**Author's Note:**

> I gotta admit, this was a fic that I didn't think was going to happen. Every time I thought that I had time to write, _something_ would come up and for that, I extend my deepest apologies and ever-lasting gratitude to my long-suffering artist who has been incredibly patient with me and more wonderful that I deserve. Also, I'd like to thank the various mods of the SPN Reversebang challenge for their patience, as well, and their extraordinary organizational skills on top of everything else.
> 
> Oh, and I basically mainlined _The Big Bang Theory_ and _Stargate: Atlantis_ while writing this. Sorry.


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